‘Empire’ Star Malik Yoba is Not Happy About How the Finale Played Out (VIDEO)

Malik Yoba, the actor who plays Lucious Lyon’s right-hand man Vernon Turner, is not happy with how the Empire season finale played out. And with good reason. His character was killed off.

Yoba appeared on TMZ Live to talk about how he found out about his character’s death. Apparently, just five days after the series premiere, while filming episode 11, he received a phone call from executive producer Lee Daniels, who informed him that the network wanted someone killed off in the finale. He then broke the news that it had been decided that the person to die would be Vernon.

“Honestly, to this day, I don’t know who, in their infinite wisdom, thought that that was the best approach,” Malik said. “But someone did. I never really got a clear answer. But it wasn’t about the work. It wasn’t about ethics or work ethic. … It’s the plotlines.”

Now I’m curious about just who made the call that it had to be Vernon, whether it was Daniels or FOX who chose him. Because, really, there were other characters who could easily have been killed off. I guess Malcolm is a bone of contention for Lucious, so killing him off wouldn’t have made much sense, and I’m sure Anika still has some trouble to make, but are characters like Becky and Rhonda really necessary? Sure, Becky got a promotion, and Rhonda is pregnant, but neither character seemed to have as much potential for drama as Vernon did. Of course, Season 2 could prove me hilariously wrong. At this rate, I don’t even care what Season 2 is about. I just need new episodes. I’m going through Cookie withdrawal.

Check out the interview with Malik Yoba on TMZ Live below, and let us know in the comments if you think it was the right call to kill off his character: